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Exploring my home culture a tool to contextualize English to my life

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EXPLORING MY HOME CULTURE A TOOL TO CONTEXTUALIZE ENGLISH TO
MY LIFE





NELSON JOS GMEZ HUERTAS
IVONNE DAYANA GONZLEZ PREZ








UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA Y TECNOLGICA DE COLOMBIA
SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
TUNJA BOYAC
2013

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EXPLORING MY HOME CULTURE A TOOL TO CONTEXTUALIZE ENGLISH TO
MY LIFE

This Research Project has been prepared and carried out by
NELSON JOS GMEZ HUERTAS
IVONNE DAYANA GONZLEZ PREZ

In order to obtain the Bachelor Degree in
MODERN LANGUAGES

DIRECTED BY
BERTHA RAMOS HOLGUIN


THESIS PROJECT





UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA Y TECNOLGICA DE COLOMBIA
SCIENCES OF THE EDUCATION FACULTY
SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
MODERN LANGUAGES PROGRAM
TUNJA BOYAC
2013

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NOTE OF ACCEPTANCE



__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________



__________________________________________

DIRECTOR





__________________________________________

JUROR




__________________________________________

JUROR





DATE: _______________________________


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DEDICATORY



















I want to dedicate this academical effort to YHWH the almighty
for giving me the wisdom, knowledge and strength
in order to finish my university studies. He
has guided me with his glorious light
in many moments of shadows.

To my mom, Evelia Huertas for whom I am.
Her love supported me in the troubles and challenges of this life, she was my moral sense and my
guide in my process of learning,
without her I wouldnt be here
and my dad, Miguel for giving me
the biggest inheritance that I could have, education.

To lovely sisters, Fany and Bety
for giving me their unconditional support, and motivation

Finally, to those people who believe
that all things are possible, if we only believe

Nelson Jos

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DEDICATORY









All the beautiful things that I have in my life
Are due to God, who is able of everything.

To my mom, Olga, for her patience, for her confidence
For believing in me, for being my support and show me
The best way to follow, for her huge love.

To my father, Fabio, for his wisdom, for his advices,
And for being my guide along my life, for giving me the
strength each time I felt that things were not possible.
To my sisters, Alisson and Jennifer who were with me and
gave me their whole-hearted.
To my partner Nelson Jos, who helped me to carry out this beautiful
Research and share with me his knowledge.



Ivonne Dayana

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


From my deepest of our hearts we want to acknowledge to God who was the infinite force supporting us during
our studies.

To the Universidad Pedaggica y Tecnolgica de Colombia, which enrich our lives in a big dimension of our
humanity.

To our director Bertha Ramos, who with a lot of wisdom, showed us the pathway to make this idea come true.

To our tutors, Ilba Yaneth Rodriguez Tamayo and Marilyn Pico Tapias for believing in us and for their
invaluable advices.

To the School San Jernimo Emilliani for the permission for developing the project and the practicum there.
It was a funny and unforgettable experience.

To our students from tenth grade for his contributions to this research study.

To Mary Gil, Nixon Guerrero, Nicolas Alemn, Nicol Tenjo and Cristian Hernndez from 10 th A.

To Jose Luis Pedraza, Jess Hernndez, Edwin Merardo, Juan Carlos Parada and Felipe Morales from
10 thB.



Nelson Jos Gmez.
Ivonne Dayana Gonzlez.


ABSTRACT
The current research study aimed at analyzing and describing the outcome in
terms of Foreign Language learning at tenth graders when a set of curricular units

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based on their home culture (individual context) were applied. This study was
carried out with adolescents from 15-17 years old at Institucin Educativa San
Jernimo Emiliani in Tunja, Boyac, Colombia. This qualitative case study took
place for four months, period in which these tenth graders answered a
questionnaire which enclosed a need analysis and a home culture patterns
exploration , based on the concept found, the researchers designed and applied
five curricular units; after that, 70 questionnaires were applied to determine how
they assessed the material, and finally, a sample of 8 participants answered a
semi-structured personal interview in order to elucidate the perceptions stated in
the questionnaires applied prevously.

The findings of this study are: firstly, the units fostered the Students engagement,
in the sense they feel certain level of affinity between them and the language they
were learning. Secondly, there was connection from the students with the topics
taught, as a result of having in mind the teenagers context. And finally, the units
constituted in a suitable tool for teachers and students. For teachers, by facilitating
the development of the lesson due to the planning achievement, looking for clear
learning goals and the addressing of the lesson. For students, by allowing them to
work with confidence and awareness taking as a reference several interesting
topics close related to their lives.

Key words: Curricular units, Foreign Language Learning, Home culture patterns

RESUMEN
El presente estudio investigativo tiene el objetivo de analizar y describir los resultados en
trminos de aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en estudiantes de dcimo grado cuando
un conjunto de unidades curriculares basadas en su cultura (contexto individual) fueron

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aplicadas. Este estudio se desarroll con adolescentes de 15-17 aos en Institucin
Educativa San Jernimo Emiliani en Tunja, Boyac, Colombia. Este estudio de caso de
corte cualitativo se llev a cabo durante cuatro meses, perodo en el que estos
estudiantes de dcimo grado respondieron un cuestionario el cual inclua una anlisis de
necesidades y una exploracin de patrones culturales, basados en los conceptos, los
investigadores disearon y aplicaron 5 unidades curriculares; a continuacin, 70
cuestionarios fueron aplicados para determinar como ellos evaluaban el material, y
finalmente, una muestra de 8 participantes respondieron una entrevista personalizada y
semi-estructurada con el fin de elucidar sus percepciones establecidas en los
cuestionarios aplicados previamente.

Las conclusiones de este estudio son: en primer lugar, las unidades fomentaron el
compromiso, en el sentido de que se sienten cierto nivel de afinidad entre ellos y el
idioma que estn aprendiendo. En segundo lugar, se di una relacin de los estudiantes
con los temas enseados, como resultado de tener en cuenta el contexto de los
adolescentes. Y finalmente, las unidades se constituyeron en una herramienta adecuada
para profesores y estudiantes. Para los profesores, ya que facilito el desarrollo de la clase
debido a la consecucin de planificacin, y la bsqueda de objetivos claros de
aprendizaje y el direccionamiento de la clase. Para los estudiantes, ya que, les permite
trabajar con confianza y conocimiento, tomando como referencia varios temas de inters
cercano relacionado con sus vidas.

Palabras claves: Unidades curriculares, Aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera, patrones de
cultura individual.


CONTENT


Page
INTRODUCTION

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LIST OF APPENDICES

LIST OF CHARTS, GRAPHS AND FIGURES


1. TOPIC 15

2. PROBLEM 16

2.1 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION 16

2.2 PROBLEM FORMULATION 18


3. RATIONALE 19


4 OBJETIVES 21


4.1 GENERAL OBJETIVE 22

4.2 SPECIFIC OBJETIVES 21


5. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 22

5.1 MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT 22

5.2 CURRICULAR UNITS 24

5.2.1 Curricular units development 26

5.3 LANGUAGE AND CULTURE 28

5.3.1 Culture in the FL classroom 28


6. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN 33

6.1 NEED ANALYSIS 33


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6.2 HOME CULTURE PATTERNS ANALYSIS 37

6.3 SCHOOL SYLLABUS 58

6.4 CONTENTS OF THE CURRICULAR UNITS 39

6.4.1 Reading exercises 40

6.4.2 Writing 41

6.4.3 Listening 41

6.4.4 Speaking 42

6.4.5 Extra activities 42


7. RESEARCH DESIGN 44

7.1 RESEARCH APPROACH 45

7.2 TYPE OF RESEARCH 46

7.3 SETTING AND POPULATION 49

7.3.1 Sample 50

7.4 INSTRUMENTS AND TECHNIQUES 50


8. DATA ANALYSIS 59

8.1 GOOD EXCELLENT SUPER 61

8.2 TOPICS I LIKE, INTERESTING THINGS. 69

8.3 EVERYTHING WAS COMPLETE 76


9. CONCLUSION 82


10 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 84

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REFERENCES 86


APPENDICES 89


LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1: School letter
Appendix 2: Parents permission request
Appendix 3: Appendix 1: Initial Survey to identify Cultural Patterns
Appendix 4: Common Patterns Survey 1
Appendix 5: Final Survey Curricular Assessment.
Appendix 6: Interview Transcriptions.
Appendix 7: Photos of the Pedagogical Experience.
Appendix 8: Curricular units.
Appendix 9: Teacher daily notes
Appendix 10: Students artifacts.





LIST OF CHARTS AND GRAPHS


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CHART 1: Importance of Didactic Material by Madrid, D(2001)

CHART 2: Curricular units content

CHART 3: Research cathegories summary

GRAPH 1: Elements of culture Tomalin (1993)

GRAPH 2: Need analysis Adapted by Pineda (2004)

GRAPH 3: Students main needs

GRAPH 4: Home culture patterns analysis















INTRODUCTION


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In our country, in the last decades, it has been seen the English instructional
material development as a very remarkable research field in English language
teaching. Some researchers have shown that Colombian teachers are more and
more engaged with the task of designing different types of useful resources for
promoting a meaningful learning from the students, due to it allow them to establish
a connection between previous knowledge with the new one.
However, Wyatt (2011, p.2), cited by Ramos and Aguirre, explains that
there is anecdotal evidence that teachers and learners in different contexts can be
frustrated by the teaching materials they are asked to use, many of which are
mass-produced in the West and used worldwide. As it is known, a good teacher
learns to identify the students needs, expectations, and likes an according to this
he can be able of getting near to the students context and in this way try to join it
with the English learning and teaching process; this with the purpose of making the
lessons more understandable and dynamic for the students. So, designing
materials is a way to understand the teaching process and at the same time it is a
way to communicate the teachable information.
This research document provides ideas about the advantages of material
development as an approach to connect the learners cultural and social patterns
of communication with the Foreign Language learning. This study emerged from a
diagnosis made at the school and a deep reflection about the accuracy of the
instructional material developed abroad but used in that specific setting.

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EXPLORING MY HOME CULTURE A TOOL TO CONTEXTUALIZE
ENGLISH TO MY LIFE shows how it is possible for teachers to develop
instructional material, focused on English national standards and 10
th
graders
home culture patterns at San Jernimo School. This research project was carried
out in three general stages. The first one entitled Exploration, the second one
called Development and application and the third one known as Assessment.
The exploration consisted on the date gathering in order to establish a theoretical
framework upon students home culture. In the development and application we
incorporated those theoretical paradigms into an instructional material and in the
last stage, called assessment, we analyze the most common patterns regarding
Foreign Language learning of the students.
In the chapters of this research proposal the reader is going to find the following
aspects: firstly, the research problem, topic, research question, rationale and
objectives of the study. Secondly, the state of art, the theoretical framework and
the instructional design. And finally the reader is going to find (after the
application), the data analysis, the implications for further research as well as the
conclusions

1. TOPIC


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The design of curricular units based on Students home culture in the process
of learning English as Foreign Language in Tenth graders of Secondary School.


















2. PROBLEM


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2.1 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
During our experience in the diverse practicum, we undertook in different
educational settings, in the teaching undergraduate program of Modern
Languages. These practices, besides of being pedagogical contributions in terms
of academicals experience for us as pre-service teachers, were opportunities to
examine the applicability and accuracy of theories discussed in the different
subjects of the program. Crdenas (2008) further emphasizes that English
teachers are called to select, design and adapt material for students since they are
the ones in touch with the realities of the schools.
In the same way, through these experiences we could get in touch with
diverse problematic issues educational institutions are facing regarding the
challenge of teaching and learning a Foreign Language (FL) in secondary
education.
At San Jernimo Emiliani School where we developed our final practicum,
we observed several problematic situations in terms of FL of the students. During
the process of observation of different English lessons in Tenth grade (A, B) we
could conclude there was Lack of updated and contextualized instructional
material, which fulfill students needs, interests, expectations and lives. In this
specific context interactive resources are scarce and the ones found do not offer
an adequate and up-dated tool to reinforce, motivate and stimulate teenagers for

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learning English as FL. In our institutional observation we noticed that the available
resources (TV, DVD and tape recorder) were damaged and the computer room did
not have any English software. The only textbooks found are ABC English,
English at home and several grammar books. Usually, nobody at school borrows
this material even the English Language teachers.
After a careful assessment of this material we realized that this material was
not complete in terms of book series, there were not textbooks available for all the
students and the ones found in the school library were not functional at all, these
textbooks were as far of the students as the countries where the language is
spoken, they were designed following patterns such as the American culture,
British culture, Standard English and so on. These paradigms are unlinked from
students expectations and home cultural roots. Besides, these books are not
colorful; they do not have enough images and draws, dynamic activities to develop,
aspects that can encourage students to work on them.
What school teachers try to do is to adapt different resources they find when
they are surfing on Internet. What was clearly evidenced is that the application of
all this material does not fulfill students language needs and expectations, the
level of communication they have, the national standards for teaching English as a
foreign language, and the most important their home culture patterns as synonym
of the self.

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This situation has many effects on students motivation toward learning
English, because they see English as a subject more of the curricular plan but not
something functional enough for their life project. This statement demands
attention from teachers because motivation for learning a Foreign Language is a
fundamental aspect and it is close related with the students selves (life). So we
incorporate those aspects taking into account the students lives and home culture.

2.2 PROBLEM FORMULATION.
What happens in 10
th
graders FL learning when a set of curricular units
based on some aspects on their home culture is applied?

How the students perceive English classes when applying a set of curricular
units based on their home culture as a core of the learning and teaching process?





3. RATIONALE


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We, as teachers and actors of the learning teaching process, face several
problematic situations that call our attention. One among many, is the lack of
material developed for our specific needs in Language classrooms; it is easy to
evidence that a high percentage of the instructional material applied in English
class come from foreign Countries. Most of these didactic resources do not fulfill
fundamental components at the moment of thinking the FL Learning for particular
communities. Aspects like social and cultural context, the students needs,
interests and expectations are essential elements at the moment of conceiving the
Foreign Language Learning. In this way, Blumer (2001) asserts that the student
learning increases when teachers focus on understanding the unique needs,
interests and cultural background. Curriculum designing set high expectations for
every student and create instruction, and assessment that enable students to meet
those expectations.
The school San Jernimo Emiliani in all the grades of secondary Education
does not have English materials developed to fulfill aspects such as culture of the
city, students needs and interests, geographical situation etc. During several
observations carried out in Tenth grade, we could identify that students are not
familiarized with the material provided by the teachers, and they do not show
enough motivation to work with the material adapted in the English classes. This
situation guided us to analyze and propose the curricular unit development as input

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to make English a part of students lives. Besides, we have the idea of designing
this material for three reasons mainly:
The first one, it is because curricular units allowed students to connect
English to their selves and through some aspects home culture showed as a mirror
in the units. So, according to our experience, the students learn in a better way
when the knowledge is linked to his context and not when it is far from him. This
happens, due to the context plays an important role in learning because it is a
discourse that surrounds an individual through which he constructs his socio
cultural reality, this means students feel more engaged when the academicals
topics are taught close related to the students socio cultural daily discourses.
The second one, it is because curricular units help us as teachers to
address our lessons and having clear goals, to have a lesson planning
engagement and to put in practice or perform our creativity. During our practice, we
realized that a teacher should plan his class in order to arrive aware to the
classroom, to have an order to follow, to feel comfortable with the topic taught but
the most important is the idea of create innovating material according to his
students and the topic. There is nothing more significant that feel your students are
engaged with the topic and that they learn a topic in a funny way.
And the last one it is because we wanted to do a contextualized material for
the educational community. It is a very relevant aspect because in the San

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Jernimo Emiliani School there was not contextualized material for language
teaching we mean, for that specific setting, grade, age and context.

4. OBJECTIVES
4.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
To analyze what happens in the FL learning when a set of curricular units
based on students home culture is applied.

6.THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Starting from the research question proposed for this study, the theory is
going to be presented taking into account two global constructs: a) as a main topic
of the project there is a strong component about material development b) it is going
to be mentioned the most highlighted ideas about curricular units and its
development and finally c) some assertions about culture.

This theoretical construct has been strongly influenced by the theories of
Brown (2001, 2002), Hedge (2000), Harmer (2001), Condon (1973), Folse (2004),
(Nuez, Pineda and Tllez, 2004), Stevick (1976), Tomalin and Stempleski (1993)
All of them have proposed very complete thinking models at the moment of
reflecting about the role of culture inside the classroom.

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Based on the most relevant aspects of this case study related to the
application of curricular units and the effectiveness in a real context, we reviewed
all the theory supporting this project. Thus, we start this chapter with the construct
related to Material Development.

5.1 MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT
As we have mentioned before, material development is basically a link
among the teacher, the student and the context. This material is like a bridge
between the knowledge object and the real word of the students. That is why the
main goal of material is substitute the reality trying to represent it in the best
possible way, facilitating its objectiveness (Nerici: 1973). In the classroom context
the didactic resources used by teachers and students are essential because they
limit the didactic program efficacy and the learning experimented by the students.

Nuez and Tellez (2009) developed some material based on texts for being
used in English courses of different levels. They wanted to encourage and
motivate teachers to create suitable materials in order to improve the students
Foreign Language Learning. In this same study, they highlight that teachers are
creative professionals who can engage in the amazing task of developing different
kind of materials to satisfy the educational requirements or policy. In this way

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teachers could make meaningful changes in their classrooms if the teacher sees
the students engagement in the subject, he will probably be engaged as well.
Nez, Pineda & Tllez (2004) conclude too, that the task of designing
materials should not be exclusively confined to text developers, since there is no
complete textbook that fulfills both learners and teachers expectations. In this
sense, Tomlinson (1998, p. 2) assures that materials development is anything
which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input
and to exploit those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake.
According to Madrid, D (2001) the didactic material plays an important role
in the learning process. These are the reasons why it happens:

IMPORTANCE OF DIDACTIC MATERIAL
Get familiar students with the reality to be taught.
Motivate the teaching and learning process, if the material is suitable and
it is used properly.
Facilitate the concept learning, the development or procedures and
strategies, and the training of attitudes and values related to what is
taught and learning.
Represent and enlighten in an intuitive way what is explained verbally for
facilitating its teaching and learning
Contributes to a better retention
Chart 1: Importance of Didactic Material by Madrid, D(2001)


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Finally, the efficacy of the didactic resources depends on the use that
teachers and students make of it, it means that methodology used at the moment
of applying any didactic material plays a fundamental role.

There are some important aspects that we as teachers should have in mind
at the moment of developing or adapting any instructional material, agreeing with
Breen and Candlin (1987) we have the following categiorization:

Objectives and contents of the curricular material. Instructional
objectives that propose what they offer to students and what they
omit.
Tasks proposed for the learning process: an established sequence of
work, kind of task suggested: variety, clearness and adaptation.

These projects are relevant for our study in the sense that they provide vital
elements that material developers need to bear in mind at the moment of creating
some material where the needs of the students are taken into account.

6.1 CURRICULAR UNITS
When we refer to a curricular unit, we have several theoretical constructs
first of all, we refer to a puzzle piece of a textbook, and any textbook developed as

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instructional material is made up of several curricular units. However, a more
complete definition of curricular unit was proposed by Ramos and Aguirre (2012)
Curricular units may be understood as a source of input that is produced by
teachers to better students learning. As they assume, we think that a curricular
unit is a meaningful tool in many settings in which the conditions are not the best
ones, through a curricular unit a teacher can have a clear goal in the teaching
process as well as some clear steps of the class which turn the English lessons
into a dynamic, comfortable, organized and confident environment.
Another important idea about curricular units is proposed by Ariza
(2004) she asserts that the design of a curricular unit is a bridge between the
curriculum proposal and the students needs and motivation. For which it can be
stated that curricular unit could be the last step at the moment of designing a
school curriculum having into account the most important factor which is the
student.
Martinez and Olave define a curricular unit as a long-term activity within
instructional context; a curricular unit generally takes the form of a unit study. Units
usually study one specific theme, and the activities and lessons are structured to fit
this theme. On the other hand, Harris (2010), cited by the same authors, declares
that the objective of curricular units is to benefit children`s memory retention, and
some researches prove that children are able to retain more information from units
than from books or lessons alone. In this way it can be said that the curricular

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units could be a didactic strategy for teachers to put in practice the theoretical
paradigms or frameworks and the reality or context of the school.

5.2.1 CURRICULAR UNITS DEVELOPMENT
There are many reasons why teachers should design their own instructional
materials, because in this way teacher can contribute in a meaningful way to the
community where we as teachers are working. Regarding this Nuez, Pineda and
Tellez, (2004) assert: The designing of your own teaching material enables you to
contribute to the following teaching and learning-related objectives:
a) To provide language learners with meaningful high quality input so that it
facilitates learners language learning targets.
b) To guide students towards the importance of recognizing their own
learning process
c) To facilitate the gradual development of a balanced set of English skills,
learning strategies, and instructional content.
d) To identify the outcome of the instructional process
e) To establish how the effectiveness of instructional material will be
developed.

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In a study developed by Ramos, Hernandez and Aguirre in 2012, entitled A
Pedagogical Experience to Delve into students Sense of Cultural Belonging and
Intercultural Understanding in a Rural School it was established that curricular
units was a step to work strengthening students sense of cultural belonging.
Besides, they think that through the design of the curricular units they created an
atmosphere that helped learners enjoy their English classes because they could
relate the knowledge they had acquired at home to learn English.

At the moment of creating a curricular unit, it is too important to follow some
steps in order to have a successful work. These steps are clearly explained by
Nez & Tllez (2009), cited by Ramos and Aguirre, Carrying Out a Needs
Assessment, Setting Goals and Objectives, Conceptualizing Content / Designing a
Syllabus, Selecting and Developing Materials and Activities, Organizing Content
and Activities and Evaluating the Material. (p.176)

The same authors mention that curricular units can be designed considering
what Crdenas (2000) calls a local audience. The author further suggests that
when we design materials for a local audience, we should be familiar with the
needs of the learners, their age, level of proficiency, degree of motivation, cultural
learning styles, and the place of the foreign language in the educational system.


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6.1 LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
The discussion about the role of culture in Language Classrooms is not a
new topic. There are many authors whose theories have a wide acceptation among
academic communities. All this discussions start from a clear definition about what
culture is in general terms and what is meant by culture in FL classrooms in
specific terms.

5.3.1 CULTURE IN THE FL CLASSROOM

In the following paragraphs we are going to establish a definition of culture
and the role of culture in the FL language classrooms. Initially, following Condon
(1973: 4) cited by Brown (2002), culture can be defined as: The ideas, customs,
skills, arts, and tools that characterize a given group of people in a given period of
time. But culture is more than the sum of its parts. It is system of integrated
patterns, most of which remain below the threshold of consciousness, yet all of
which govern human behavior just as surely as the manipulated strings of a puppet
control its motions

So all the societies of the world exist inside a culture, and all cultures have
certain particularities. But how to create a framework enclosing the elements of
culture of a determined population? Which parameters do we follow in academic
research?. In this sense it is pertinent to mention the theorical constructs by

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Robinson (1985) cited by Tomalin and Stemplesky (1993). For him the elements of
a culture are enclosed in the following diagram.

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE








Graph 1: Elements of culture Tomalin (1993) p.7

The same authors propose seven vital categories when describe the culture
of a community, dealing with cognitive as wells as affective aspects. These
categories are going to be taken into account for this study.

Recognizing cultural images and symbols: It encloses elements such
as popular images and symbols expressed in personalities,
architectural features, landscapes and songs.

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Working with cultural products: stamps, newspapers, radio broadcast
etc.
Examining patterns of everyday life: people lifestyle, people everyday
experience, employment, dating, shopping etc.
Examining cultural behavior: customs, habits, dress, foods and
leisure.

In the context of 10
th
graders at San Jernimo Emiliani School it could be
identified certain patterns that govern students lives and behaviors. Patterns not
only reflected in English classes but in all their academic life. These patterns
create on them a reality and this reality produces on them desires or rejection
about learning. Brown (2002) said that human beings tended to perceive reality
within the context of their own culture, a reality that we had created and therefore
not necessarily a reality that was empirically defined but a reality defined inside the
society where we live.

That is why, this project pretended to explore that cultural reality from that
specific community in order to take this construct and reflect it in several curricular
units; as a way of reinforcing not only the Foreign Language Learning on 10
th

graders but as a via of reflection about the learners identity in front of the new
culture and language they are learning.


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It is true that learning a language implies to learn the cultural context of that
Foreign Language. But it does not mean that learners of a Foreign Language like
English have to leave behind their socio cultural reality. Because, there is an abyss
between the reality of a learner of a public school here in Colombia, in contrast with
a North American student of their same age. Whereas the father of a North
American student eats hamburger and soda, the father of the Colombian student
eats roasted corn on the cob or other native food. And that is a nice reflection
pointed by Stevick (1976b), he reveals that: Learner can feel alienation in the
process of learning a Second Language In teaching an alien language, we
need to be sensitive to the fragility of students by using techniques that promote
cultural understanding

That alienation can be seen as the process of unconscious incorporations
of new thoughts that learners must do in relation to the new culture they are
learning. Alienation that can be avoided if language teachers focus their
instructional material taking as base students cultural patterns to acquire the FL. In
this sense, Zuluaga, Lpez and Quintero (2009) cited by Martinez and Olave
(2011) concluded that the students cultural background in the English curriculum
promotes meaningful learning through the design, implementation and evaluation
of teaching guides. This research allowed us to have a clear idea about the
relevance of relating the cultural context to the English curriculum and the design

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of materials. These aspects foster the students interaction and communication and
they will feel more comfortable to use the language into the classroom.

In another study Harris (2010) cited by Martinez and Olave (2011) too, the
objective of curricular units is useful to benefit childrens memory retention, and
some researches had discovered that children are able to retain more information
from units than from books or lessons alone, better if those curricular units are
based on students home culture patterns as a synonym of the individuality and the
self.














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6. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
In this stage, in the one hand, we present some general ideas about aspects
to bear in mind before the development of the curricular units, in the other hand,
we talk about the curricular units platform based on the students home culture
which was developed as a tool to contextualize English to the students lives. In
this way, we could analyze the impact of this designing on students Foreign
Language Learning.

6.1 NEED ANALYSIS

The curricular units were developed taking into account the following three
aspects: Home Culture Pattern Analysis, Students Needs Analysis and School
Syllabus of English.

So, it is in this way we can provide to the learners an instructional material
developed and thought on the learners, obviously close related to the national
standards for English learning. Another important aspect when developing a
curricular unit is the need analysis; in relation to this Pineda (2004) proposes the
following chart of need analysis:


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Graph 2: Need analysis Adapted by Pineda (2004)

In this process, the material developer is going to gather the information
focused in the needs of the students. This theory is relevant in this study because it
suggests the steps to follow when gathering the information to achieve our
research objectives. In relation to the need analysis Brown (1995) stated that the
activities involved in the systematic gathering of information that would serve as
basis for developing a curriculum had three steps the first was making basic
decisions about the need analysis, the second was gathering the information and
the third was using that information.

These ideas enlighten our study at the moment of looking for the appropriate
information about students own culture. It is important to clarify that not all the

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cultural aspects are going to be included in this analysis, because mainly the
learners are the ones who are going to address what aspects are included at the
moment of thinking in their home culture. Following the Pinedas chart, we
summarize the students main needs in the following chart:


Graph 3: Students main needs
The identification of these needs is the result of a triangulation of the
different instruments we applied during the implementation of the study. These
instruments, as we will mention later, were survey, interview and the teacher
journal.
Firstly, we identified that students are between 15 and 17 years old most of
them are boys, their socio economical level is medium, they have double working

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day, they take five hours of English per week. Secondly, we could identify through
several information that they are mostly visual and auditive. Thirdly, the skills to be
developed according to the school Syllabus were speaking, writing, listening and
grammar. The type of activities they wanted to find were group activities,
dialogues, individual activities, songs, problem solving activities, extra classes
activities, rally, etc.,.Finally, the communicative topics proposed by the researchers
were: 1. Talking about my life project 2. What a wonderful environment 3.
Expressing ability, permission and possibility 4. Love and Friendship Month 5.
Internet a window to the world. Besides, the five curricular units were based on the
students hoe culture patterns found.

Ariza (2004) cited by Martinez and Olave, supported the idea of approaches
to curriculum planning taking into account the students needs in terms of language
and culture, she suggests that social interaction is the key factor in any learning
process, on the other hand, she adds that a teacher become technician who plan
and implement activities according to the students production. Finally, she
concludes that the design of a curricular unit is a bridge between the curriculum
proposal and the students needs and motivation.

It enlightened us in the sense of the relevance of connect the curriculum and
students culture and needs, in order to engage students towards the production of

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the language. In the same way, the curricular units design is like the tool to achieve
the curriculum general aims.

6.2 HOME CULTURE PATTERNS ANALYSIS
The Home Culture Pattern Analysis is the result of the application of the first
interview, through this interview we could identify the students ideas, moral and
likes. As it is presented in the following diagram:

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Graph 4: Home culture patterns analysis
There were found many useful data but we focused our attention on the most
highlighted and general constructs.
6.3 SCHOOL SYLLABUS
Basically, the useful information taken from the curriculum was related to the
different topic that students were supposed to study in the third and fourth period.
The curricular units were based on the basic standards of competences in foreign
languages using different skills to design each unit. The Grammar topics were:
Future Perfect Tense
Future Perfect Continuous Tense
Modal Verbs
Reported speech
Vocabulary of Internet
It is important to say that these topics are focused on grammar. Through the
curricular units we tried to turned the classes into a communicative approach, so,
these same topics from our perspective were presented based on the topics:
Talking about my life project.
Expressing abilities, possibilities and permission

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Love and Friendship month
What a wonderful environment
Internet a window to the world.
6.4 CONTENTS OF THE CURRICULAR UNITS
In the following chart we will present in summary the skills, objectives, topics
and titles of the curricular units.
UNIT TOPIC FUNCTION OBJECTIVE SKILLS GRAMMAR

I
Talking about my
life project
The students will
talk about their
life projects.
To plan in
English the main
arrangements
for the future.
Writing
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Future perfect
tense

II
Expressing ability
possibility and
permission
The student will
be able of using
phrases for
expressing
ability,
permission and
possibility.
To express my
abilities,
possibilities
using modal
verbs.
Writing
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Modal verbs

III
What a wonderful
environment!
Students will talk
about their
abilities and the
animals abilities.
To talk about
animal and
people abilities.
Writing
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Can and cant

IV
September month
of Love and
Friendship
Students wil able
to report what
people have said
previously.
To report what
people have
said.
Writing
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Reported
speech

V
Internet a window
to the world
Students will get
familiar with the
diverse
vocabulary of the
network.
To get familiar
the students
with the English
terms on the
net.
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking
Vocabulary of
internet
Chart 2: Contents of the curricular units

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40


Each curricular unit contains a general objective to achieve, some specific
objectives according to the school curriculum and students needs draws tied with
the students likes, some of the curricular units have at the end a test in which the
students get familiar with the knowledge of the language acquired. Besides, the
units have in mind the development of the four skills: writing, reading, listening and
speaking all the activities proposed are created by the researchers of this project,
however some of the listening exercises are songs proposed by students. There
was designed a little chart called thesaurus so, we put some words in bold and
then these words were located in the chart, the idea was for students looked for
the synonym and the antonym of the word, in order for them to understand their
meaning.
6.4.1 Reading exercises
The reading exercises were designed having in mind the level of the
students and they were understood by them because we tried to use in the
readings, vocabulary with a low level of difficulty for them. In most of the curricular
units, the reading skill has three stages: pre- reading, reading and post - reading.
In the pre - reading, we wanted to know the students previous knowledge in order
to prepare them to read the text. The reading had some questions to answer
according what student had read. In the post- reading, we wanted students to get

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familiar with the topic of the text and give their opinion about different issues
studied along the curricular unit.
6.4.2 Writing
The different writing exercises were characterized by the following aspects:
They were short and easy for the students.
They were the result of the process after the development of each one of
the curricular units.
Some of these writings were graded and corrected for giving students a
feedback.
The spaces for developing these exercises were given in the same unit.
The exercises proposed by the unit were creative and taking into account
the point of view of the students, so, they were opened to write.
6.4.3 Listening
This ability was developed in all the curricular units, in most of the cases, the
listening exercises were created by us. It means, we recorded the exercises with
our own voices. However, some times, we use the language assistants voice and
in some occasions, we use songs proposed and elected by the students. All the
listening exercises were designed based on blank spaces completing, we couldn`t

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go beyond in terms of advanced listening, it means a type of listening in which not
only the student has to complete blankets but also he need to infer information
from the exercise. This happened due to the language proficiency of the students.
The listening exercises were assessed with positive points for students who had
completed the exercises at all.
6.4.4 Speaking
The speaking activities were developed based on some features in order to
motivate them to speak. The exercises were easy because according to our
diagnosis at the beginning of the pedagogical practicum students do not like to
speak, therefore, they were so afraid to speak in front of the class, because their
classmates made fun of them. Despite, we proposed several exercises which
helped us to start promoting the speaking skill in the classroom. It is important to
clarify, that the only spaces in which they talk in English were in extra classroom
classes.
6.4.5 Extra activities
Besides the four skills activities we included in the curricular units several
extra exercises like crossword, letter soups, identifying and writing vocabulary,
matching and drawing, matching completing conversations, asking classmates,
listening to stories, completing charts, rally, repeating rhymes funny test for

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assessing what students had learnt and nice draws or pictures to motivate
students knowledge.
All the previous activities with developed with the purpose of achieving the
following instructional goals:
To determine students home - culture patterns.
To develop five curricular units based on the students home - culture
patterns discovered previously.
According to the previous objectives we formulated the following questions, to have
in mind during the process of developing this study.
What are the home culture patterns in 10
th
graders at San Jernimo Emiliani
School? (Exploration)
How the curricular units based on students home culture determine the FL
learning? (Application)
What can be concluded about the application of this instructional material
regarding FL learning? (Assessment).





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7. RESEARCH DESIGN
The investigation has become in essential tool for the teaching and learning
process and the personal growth. It gives some techniques and strategies in order
to improve the educational environment and to know the world surround us.

In this chapter, the reader is going to find the Research approach, the type
of research, the setting where the study took place, the participants and finally the
instruments to gather the information.
7.1 RESEARCH APPROACH
The research approach of this study is Qualitative, because in general
words the study is concerned in understanding individual perceptions of the world,
according to Camacho (2003) this type of research is a methodology that has its
origins in anthropology and it is aimed to studying the relationship between
teacher-student, making decisions and solving problems more than contributing to
a theory.
Having this as a reference we choose this type of research, because our
main purpose with this study is working with students in order to find solutions to
the stated problem and in order to describe the process that took place along the
implementation of this pedagogical proposal.

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Additionally, Camacho (2003) mentions several characteristics of the
Qualitative Research approach that are going to be taken into account to
implement this project. Those characteristics are:
Qualitative Research looks for holistic comprehension and
emphasizes in depth.
It is inductive
Many researchers plan their work in four stages: data collection, date
analysis, integration of results by areas of interest and meaning of
results.
It does not have previous procedure rules. It does not define or
measure variables. It is based on intuition.
The researcher is the main measurement instrument, who must make
continuous reflection and resourceful analysis in order to avoid
subjectivity.
The subject knows he/she is being observed.
It is based on the exploration of few cases or of small groups but
those aspects are representative to the community that is being
studied.
It does test anything, it generates theories and hypothesis.
Data analysis takes place as it is gathered and there is interaction
between observation and interpretation.

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The previous characteristics of this research approach are going to be
reflected during the process of gathering and analyzing the information and during
the process of data analysis.
7.2 TYPE OF RESEARCH
This project is a Participative Action Research. According to Elliot (1990) the
Action Research looks for changes, an agreement, responsibility and reflexive
participation by the persons who want a change in a constant world of learning.
The development of this project has four steps following the Action Research
procedure:
Exploration and reflection: the exploration is a strategy for understanding
the problem. In the current study the exploration started with several observations
in English classes throughout field notes; after the previous exploration came the
reflection for discovering the problem.
This was the first step at the beginning of our project, by means of it, we
could discover the available textbooks and instructional material in the school; the
use that school gave them and the little interest and effectiveness it has for the
learners.
Planification: It is an action to design the plan to give answers to the
questions and solutions to the problem observed.

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In this step we choose the problem to which we could give a solution, in this
case we saw the curricular units development as a suitable tool to deal with the
problematic situation observed in the 10
th
graders English class environment.
Action and observation: It is a flexible and open step to register results the
grade of assertion.
In this step we designed five curricular units based on students home
culture patterns, then we applied and piloted this material as an action to solve the
problematic situation.
Evaluation: It is the last step of Action Research. In this step the objectives,
resources, and pedagogical strategies are evaluated in order to see the connection
with the research aims.
In this stage of the process we assessed the effectiveness and accuracy of
the material developed, through different data collection instruments as surveys
and interviews we collected students perceptions about this proposal for the
language classroom.
Reflection: It is a complex task to analyze the activities result,
achievements and difficulties during their development, which have to be taken into
account for the future teaching activities and research process.

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After the application of the curricular units with this specific grade, many
positive and negative reflections were found through the process. Here the positive
ones:
Students were engaged with the curricular units, they found them
interesting in the sense the units contain elements such as favorite
football players, topics about internet, animals abilities and love and
friendship love.
Students were more disciplined in the classroom, they were anxious
for asking about the topics because the curricular units became the
classes more dynamic.
In terms of evaluation, the units were a very useful tool for the
students because they developed them in class and in extra classes
so, in this way they have enough time to review several times the
topics through the set of activities proposed in the units.
The units contribute students to remember easily the topics because
each one of the units has a very symbolic aspect for example,
internet, and love, friendship, animals and life project.
The curricular units allow creating a confident environment.
Now we will mention some aspects to improve:

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In two units, the level of English demanded by the teachers in the
reading exercises was a little bit complex. Some of them were long
and they have many new vocabulary.
The lack of dictionary from some of the students was a weakness,
many times they asked to teacher for every new word they found in
the units
The time and the diverse circumstances and politics of the
educational institution were aspects that delayed the curricular units
development.
We realized that it is very complex trying to satisfy all the students`
expectations, so, we tried to do the best in order to create the most
ingenious units.
In some occasions the listening exercises planed in the units could
not be applied due to the lack of resources such as sound equipment
or video beam.

7.3 SETTING AND POPULATION
For the development of this research study entitled: Exploring my home-
culture: a tool to contextualize English to my life the population and object of
study were the students of 10
th
A

10
th
B

grades. They were 70 students, 50 boys

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and 20 girls between 15 and 17 years old. They had medium socio economic
status. They take 5 English hours per week and the classroom have little space,
the amount of light is normal and there are not many sources to work.
The setting is the school San Jernimo Emiliani. It is a public school
located in Tunja. The school is located to the north of Tunja city in the Santa Ana
Neighborhood. In this educational institution there is double working day. It is in the
morning from 7:30am to 12:30pm and in the afternoon from 2:30pm to 5:00 p.m.
The total population of the school is about 800 students.
This institution has as main objective to educate students who become
active members of the society, law and human valious observers, creators of a
loving society, built on freedom, justice, democracy and peace.
7.3.1 Sample
The sample to gather the information were selected at random, they are four
students from tenth A and four Students from Tenth B.
7.4 INSTRUMENTS AND TECHNIQUES
The selection of data collection techniques used in this project were chosen
bearing in mind that they provided a variety of sources that evidenced the process
and collected the necessary information in the classroom during the application
S. Ana
Neighborhood

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and assessment of the curricular units. These techniques were established taking
into account the Qualitative approach previously mentioned.
For the first stage of the project the technique that was used was elicitation
due to the nature of the research. It is necessary to reveal the most highlighted
aspect that students consider important regarding their own culture. From the
elicitation we used questionnaire and surveys.
A questionnaire is one of the most well-known tools in research because it
allows the researcher to analyze the information in a very objective grade.
However, developing a questionnaire is not an easy task, it requires some relevant
aspects such as a clear framework of the research scope, the goals of the
research and besides it is necessary to determine the purpose of each one of the
questions planned. It has not to be long and the questions need to be as simple as
possible.
The questionnaire according to Santrock (2006) it is the quickest and best
way to get information about students. Through questionnaires we can find out
students experiences, beliefs and feelings. They are usually provided in written
form.
Aparicio and Palacios (2003) suggest some ideas to have in mind at the
moment of planning each one of the inquiries of a questionnaire for example: What
do I want to know? Who is going to answer the question? How am I going to ask?

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What instruments I am going to use? What time does the participant have for
answering the question? How many questions am I going to ask and what is the
order of each one of them? These questions help the interviewer to have a clear
path to focus his research goals. In this sense, the goal of a questionnaire is to turn
the research inquiries into concrete questions in order to gather viable information
to be quantified.
In the proposal of our questionnaires we had in mind some relevant aspects
that we would like to highlight:
The cultural background of the students. In this case, our sample,
were students who were members of a religious educational
institution, they had certain social roles and educational politics.
Besides, there were some daily discourses very common in this kind
of population, for example the sports, the music, the latest changes
in the TV programs, the social networks etc, These elements allows
us to have a special rapport when interacting during the
questionnaire solving.
The students age. Most of the students are teenagers; they
interacted easily when we talk about in an informal speech.

Our first questionnaire was designed to identify the following things:
students` main needs and home culture patterns which is the core of our study, this

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questionnaire was applied at the beginning of our pedagogical practicum (see
appendixes 3 Survey 1 Hacia mi miundo interior. Imaginarios, conceptos e
ideas
1
and 4: Common Patterns). Through this questionnaire, we could identify
some relevant aspects about the students setting, background and some
perceptions of the students, regarding likes, dislikes, perceptions, expectations and
etc.,. Some of the questions proposed in this questionnaire were the following:
Qu es lo que ms se te dificulta del ingls?
Which aspects of English do you consider difficult?
Si tu fueras profesor de Ingles qu aspectos te gustara ensear a tus
estudiantes?
If you were a English teacher, write all the aspects would you like to
teach to your students.

The collection gathered with this survey was useful for us in order to identify
the most relevant aspects to incorporate in each one of the units. This first
questionnaire was applied to all students of tenth A and all of tenth B (70 students),
after that, we selected at random eight papers to be analyzed. It was applied
during the class and the available time for this activity was forty minutes. The
questionnaire was applied in Spanish and solve in Spanish too. We ask for
students to be specific in each one of the answers, at that moment they were
aware that this information was going to be used with research purposes.

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The second questionnaire was delivered at the end of the application of the
curricular units, (See Appendix five Final Survey) the questions we asked
were:
1. Cmo te sentiste al momento de desarrollar las unidades curriculares
propuestas por el profesor (a)?
How did you feel when the development of the curricular units
proposed by the teacher?

2. Qu fortalezas encontraste en las unidades curriculares?
What are the strengths did you find in the curricular units?

3. Qu debilidades observaste en las unidades curriculares?
Which weaknesses did you observe in the units?

4. Si tuvieras la oportunidad de agregar algn tipo de actividad a las
unidades? Qu le agregaras? Por qu?
If you had the opportunity to add any activity to the units, What would
you add? Why?

5. Qu actividades se te facilitaron y cules se te dificultaron de las
propuestas en las unidades?
Which activities did you find easy and which ones did you find hard or
difficult?

This second survey was developed with the main goal of identify the
students perceptions about the impact of the practicum. The students had thirty
minutes to solve the survey. Before delivering the survey, we explained them the
questions to clarify some aspects. The attitude toward the development of the
survey from the students was good, they were willing.


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The second instrument used for this research project was the interview
which is a set of questions that a person make in order to inquire about specific
information about any issue, this kind of instrument is done in oral way, it means
that there is a real interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee.
In qualitative research interview seeks to describe the meaning of central
themes in the life world of the subjects. The main task in the interviewing is to
understand the meaning of what the interviewees say. Seidman (1998) affirm that
interviewing when considered as a method when conducting qualitative research,
is a technique used to understand the experiences of others. He asserts that
interviewing differs from other methods of data collection that it is often more
exploratory in nature, and allows for more flexibility. It means that interviewing
emerges from a deep desire to inquire about how the people around us conceive
the reality where we live. Through the interview we could explore deeper students
opinions and perceptions about different units applied during the process of
developing the units.
Also, Seidman states: (1998)At the heart of interviewing research is an
interest in other individuals stories because they are of worth and this gain inside
into the subjective understanding of those around us. This is precisely the main
goal of our study is going into the students` individual point of view; the matter was
understand their behavior and the meaning that underlines that behavior.

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The participants of our interview were four students from tenth A and four
students from tenth B, these participants are the same selected from the
beginning, at random. The purpose of this interview was to go deeper into the
opinions given by the students in the second questionnaire mentioned above. It
means, we prove and ask for more specific information of the answers given by
them in the surveys. The interview was semi structured it means, it was open, in
some occasions, to new derived depending on the answers given by the students.
We were as sensitive as possible with the exploration of this information.
All eight interviews were recorder in a mobile phone and then they were
transcribed (see appendix 7) four of the interviews were done by the researcher
Ivonne and the other one were done by the researcher Nelson. Additionally, it is
important to highlight that at the beginning of all the interviews we started with
general questions such as: How are you going? What about of your grades in this
academicals period? How many subjects did you fail? What about your on line
courses of English? etc.
The purpose of this dynamic was avoid tension, anxiety and nervous in the
students. The interviews were done outside the academicals lessons like in the
football yard or in the halls; some of the interviewees knew their voices were going
to be recordered whereas another did not have any idea we have the recorder in
our jacket pocket. When we gave them the word we did not interrupt, we make the
participants to feel comfortable and we tried to look deep details of each one of the

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statements they were proposing. At the end of the experience all the participants
were informed their voices had been recordered and used for research purposes.
The interview had a strong component of informality, actually they were
conversational interviews. It means, there were not predetermined questions; the
questions were not planned previously because they emerged from the information
given in the last survey. That is why we started with statements such as: Having in
mind what you have written in the survey, I this survey you mentioned. Why?
How? Where? etc,., How did the experience make you feel ?

The third instrument to collect data for this study was teachers journal or
teachers field notes, regarding this, a teacher journal is a daily log in which the
teacher registers the most important events, observations and different issues
about the performance of the lesson; through a teacher journal the teacher can
reflect about the effectiveness of his methodology. The field notes are important
elements in classroom research; they are tools teacher use for systematizing an
experience. This exercise requires from the teacher certain grade of rigurousity.
Regarding the use of daily notes in classroom research, Acero (2004)
assume that daily notes are records in relation to the teaching and learning
process. He proposes some steps to have in mind when writing a daily note. First

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the headline includes the location and characterization of the situation, then the
description of the events in a very specific way and finally, the reflection.
The daily notes allows the teacher to have a reflective look about
education, pedagogy, the role of the school and the teaching profession. However,
it is stated Smith (1989) that a field note can be used to record reflections on ones
teacher practice. The most substantial classroom episodes, difficulties experienced
during the learning process, assessment of students and feedback.
Several reasons for which we opted for gathering information with this
instrument were as follows: First, teachers journals allowed us to reflect and learn
how the participants behave when they were developing each one of the curricular
units, not only regarding of the study, but also, the most highlighted aspects in our
pedagogical final practicum. What we registered in these papers were the attitudes
and behavior.
It is important to adds that in total we write five daily notes (see appendix
9), these daily notes was written at the end of the class we designed a easy format
in which we include the name of the curricular unit, the date in which it was applied,
the number of the curricular unit and the enough available space to write our
findings.
Another instrument is the students artifacts produced during the piloting of
the curricular units. In this case the artifacts were the writings exercises produced

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from the eight students after the implementation of the curricular units. This
instrument was useful for us in order to analyze how the students behave in front of
each one of the activities planned on the units and in some way we could see the
advances students had in each one of the topics proposed on the syllabus.

8. DATA ANALYSIS
The teacher as a material designer plays a meaningful role in the
educational process because through his experience he can determine and reflect
critically about the teaching and learning process and in this way make essential
contributions to the community. Once we have material developed by the students,
it is important to look for the most appropriate strategies in order to build a body of
knowledge which helped us to reflect about the accuracy and effectiveness of this
material.
In this chapter we are going to present the steps that we followed to collect,
analyze and interpret the information for answering the research question. The
data was examined having in mind some relevant aspects. The information was
gathered through the following instruments: two questionnaires, one applied at the
beginning of the pedagogical Practicum and another at the end of the period when
the students had developed the curricular units. Besides, we took notes in our field

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notes at the end of the application of the units. Then, we triangulated the
information with the instruments we used.

The analysis of the data was done following the theory of grounded
approach. Regarding this, Glaser and Strauss, (1967) cited by Martinez and Olave
(2012) the grounded approach refers to a theory that is developed inductively from
a corpus of data. It is a research method where the theory emerges from the data.
This corpus of literature helped us to create some general categories and concepts
starting from the available data. Strauss (1990) establishes that the qualitative
aspect of this methodology favor the development of responses to social
phenomenon respect to what is happening and why.

We categorized the data of the three instruments: Field Notes, Survey and
Interview. We took the most relevant aspects in them, after that, we highlighted the
common patterns having in mind the research question and then we decided to
work in three general categories. The first one was called: Biensuper,
excelente, the second one was named: Temas de gusto, cosas interesantes
and the last one was called: Todo estuvo completo.

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The categories are summarized in the following chart:

Chart 3: Research Categories summary

8.1. GOOD EXCELLENTSUPER (BIEN EXCELENTE SUPER)
This first category was called in this way GoodExcellentSuper
because it refers to the expression commonly found in the first survey and during
the interview. It was used by the students when we asked them about how they felt

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when developing the curricular units. The students expressed their likeness with
the activities proposed in each one of the curricular units. We realized through our
daily notes they felt comfortable and identified with the curricular units and the way
there was presented the topics of the syllabus. The most common pattern found in
this category was the way as students saw the activities proposed by the curricular
units. They agree with the activities were appealing, we recognized this due to the
set of activities planned in the units made students to feel engaged with the
development of the units. We can corroborate this with the students opinions
which were gathered with the instruments. Now, we are going to present in brief
some samples of the students perceptions in relation to the engagement they
showed in the curricular units application.

First of all, the reader will find the information gathered in the written survey
and then we will extend those assertions with the ones found in the interview.

MARY: (10
TH
A)

Fig1 I felt comfortable, because it was quite practical and interesting. It is
very important not only learning to write in English but also, to read and speak it.

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Each activity, enriched us in any of this fields, things were very complete. (Surv.1
Q1).
In this answer we could identify that student liked the unit, she found it easy
and she highlights the units had helped her to improve reading, writing and
speaking. In the same way, she considers the units as a complete valuable source
which could enrich her.

EDWIN: (10
TH
B)

Fig.2 Actually, all the activities developed were easy for me, they were not
complicated as I expected, it was a good technique for teaching the Foreign
Language in public schools of the city (Surv. 3 Q5).

For him, the activities proposed in the units were included different
grammar topics, were adequate for his level. This student manifested that the
different topics to study during the academical period were going to be hard, but
the units make them easier. Besides, something very nice he asserts is this
teaching strategy could be suitable for teachers in public schools.

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CRISTIAN (10
TH
A)

Fig.3 All the activities taught but the teacher looked for me good and creative,
and they were activities very useful for us in the cognitive part, each one of them
gave us knowledge (Surv.4 Q1)
Since the beginning of the development of the curricular units, the
researchers realized that the use of general knowledge topics for this specific
teenagers were the key element to call their attention toward the communicative
topics of the class. This is precisely, what Cristian concludes about the units. For
him, the units were good and creative and all the activities helped him in his
cognitive part. It means, that the units contributed to give some general data
because all the units talked about different topics of daily life. For example, many
of them did not know the real story of the Saint Valentines day and while they
learnt this story, they learnt grammar aspects too.





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MARIA (10
TH
B)

Fig.4 Most of the activities were easy but I found difficulties in the language or
idioms, but thanks to the activities I could overcome the obstacles in the English
language (Surv.5 Q5)
In some way Maria declares that the variety of the activities, incorporated in
the units, helped her to understand the topics. Now, we are going to evidence the
students perception about the units collected in the interview:

NICOLAS: ah pues le vi de creativo profe pues las actividades de por ejemplo la de las canciones
me parecieron muy bacanas esas actividades que mientras uno iba escuchando iba escribiendo,
me parecieron activi. La de cupido, la de Cristiano Ronaldo uy esa estuvo muy buena me gusto
todo eso las actividades fueron creativas porque yo nunca pues en los profesores que habamos
tenido practicantes no haban hecho lo mismo.

NICOLAS: ah teacher, I saw them creative because the song activities look for me very awesome
those activities while I was listening, I was writing, for example The Cupidos one, the Cristiano
Ronaldo were very good. I like all these activities because they were creative, because I never
have done the same before with previous teachers.


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NIXON: No s a mi me pareci que las unidades o sea el modo de manejar la clase fue pues bien
por lo que fue algo diferente y la salida de lo del real y todo eso no se no le agregara en este
momento no no pienso agregarle algo.
NIXON: Well, I consider that the units I mean the way of managing the class was ok because it
was different and out of the normality. I would not add anything.
EDWIN: temas de inters para uno como Cristiano Ronaldo, hace que la persona se interese
por el texto y que le ponga atencin entonces eso ayuda a que la persona aprenda de mejor
manera al igual que la ayuda del profesor, los crucigramas, las actividades, que se incorporan al
taller le dan una mayor facilidad de aprendizaje y como ms ameno.

EDWIN: interesting topics for me like Cristiano Ronaldo, it makes that the participant get
Interested for the test and focus his attention on it so, it allows that the person to learn in a best way
and in the same way it helps the teacher, the crosswords, the activities that are incorporated in the
workshop turn the topic more easy and learnable.

CHUCHO: Fortalezas, muchas cosas que de pronto no se tratan muy regularmente en una rea
de Ingls se trataron. Hubo cosas mucho ms dinmicas que dan ms inters que una clase
normal comn y corriente, no slo lectura o cosas demasiado regulares o superficiales.
CHUCHO: Strengths, many things that may be are not studied in an English class were studied.
There were things much more dynamic which give more motivation than a normal class not just
reading or things quite regular or superficial.




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The previous samples show us the significance of the five of curricular units
for the students, they agree with the activities proposed by the units were creative
and new for them. They expressed that this material was stimulating and attractive.
The material allows them to do different activities far from the common. For
example, they liked a lot the units were based on Cristiano Ronaldo, Cupido, etc,.
Another aspect that call the students attention was the idea of learning English in a
different way, we mean, taking as reference topics of their interest and things that
surround them. The topics discussed in the units were social networks, special
dates like San Valentine`s Day, animals, Important people like Cristiano Ronaldo
etc.,.
In the first sample, we could infer that the student felt comfortable with the
activities developed in the classroom. The second student says that the English
lesson were awesome for him because there were debated things different from
the normal. The third student found that the units contributed him in terms of
facilitating his Foreign Language Learning. He states were a bridge between the
knowledge and their interests and likes. The fourth student found that the units
enclosed general interest topics; he considers the units were beyond the normal
classes they had taken before in the other classes and with other teachers.

Newmann (1992) gives a global concept about Student engagement and
the relevance it plays in Foreign Language Classrooms. He says that Student

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engagement occurs when students make a psychological investment in learning.
They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the
formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the material and
incorporating or internalizing it in their lives. In this sense, the engagement
encloses several aspects in the academical life of any student and the material
becomes in something meaningful when remembering the contents studied at
school. However the material is not the only factor which promotes engagement
because there are some facts that can contribute to achieve that emotional state
quite yearned by teachers.
Besides, in one hand, Kenny, et al (1995) agree that Students are engaged
when they are involved in their work, persist despite challenges and obstacles, and
take visible delight in accomplishing their work. On the other hand, Schlechty
(1994) affirm that student engagement also refers to a "student's willingness, need,
desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process
promoting higher level thinking for enduring understanding."
.
In the present study,
since the beginning we could realize students get committed with English lessons
when they observed everything was focused on them. In the field Notes, there are
several registers about the commitment students showed in several classes during
the application of the units especially in the units based on football and internet.
The interest for learning was observed when the students went to the teacher for

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asking as many questions they had about the activities, procedures, exercises,
questions, vocabulary they should develop along the classes.

8.2 TOPICS I LIKE, INTERESTING THINGS (TEMAS DE GUSTO, COSAS
INTERESANTES)

This second category was called in this way because this assertion encloses
a general view about an achievement of this material in this specific setting, since
the beginning the researchers observed the necessity of a contextualized material
for this specific population. We tried to focus our attention in the students likes and
interests, so at the end of the development of the curricular units, most of them
manifested his sincere appealing toward the English class and in specific words
toward the different activities they developed through the period.

In the data collection we found relevant aspects which helped us to clarify
more this category. In the survey some of the students contributed of the following
way:
MARY: (10
TH
A)


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Fig.5 Topics I like, interesting things. Practical topics where we put in practice
vocabulary and other things (Surv.1Q2)
As you can see, this is the title of this category. She states that the units
were interested for her due to the focus of them was relevant and close related
things for the students. Also, she highlights the importance of using the units as a
tool to present each one of the syllabus topic.

EDWIN:

Fig.6 In my opinion the curricular units given by the teachers for developing in
English class are very good because we interact with the net which is a
contribution for stimulating our interest toward the Foreign Language.(Surv.3 Q1)

Edwin grades the units stating that they are good, this because, the
connection between the English topics with students likes and expectations,
specifically, he talks about a curricular unit base on vocabulary of internet in which
the commitment and engagement with the class was high, this student says that
the units awoke his interest toward learning English.

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NICOLAS:

Fig.7 Comfortable because they are amusing activities and they are not usual.
They allow to be more interested with the topics and the lesson (Surv.8 Q1)

In some way Nicolas declares that the units besides of being funny and
amusing they could innovate a little bit the class in the sense they have not work
with units before. In this specific case, Nicolas not only enjoyed the units but also
the class.

The previous participants conclude that working with curricular units was a
funny experience for the reason that through them they could learn in a better way
taking as reference topics introduced in their own context. However, we want to
explore deeper these assertions with the help of the interviews:

EDWIN: Pues si claro porque, una parte porque las prcticas superiores estn hechas
para uno por ejemplo temas de inters para uno como Cristiano Ronaldo, hace que la

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persona se interese por el texto y que le ponga atencin entonces eso ayuda a que la
persona aprenda de mejor manera

EDWIN: Of course because, in one hand the upper practices are designed for the
student, for example interesting topics like Cristiano Ronaldo become the person get
interested for the reading and at the same time pay attention to it so, that contributes that
the person learn in a better way.

In this interview Edwin go deeper when he mentions the importance of working with
the students interesting topics in this specific case with Cristiano Ronaldo because in this
way the students can feel a strong connection between English as a Foreign Language
and their likes. This identification promotes students feel engaged with the topics taught
and the activities planned in the unit.It is important to highlight that most of the reading
called students attention and learning. Aditionally, in our teacher journal was logged that in
this specific unit students showed high motivation and interest, they asked for the unknown
vocabulary and the translation of some new expressions they found difficult at the moment
of developing the unit. Besides, we could observe this fact happened due to the presence
on the unit of a cultural and popular symbol: the famous football player Cristiano Ronaldo.

CHUCHO: eee, bueno, eee podramos comenzar con las expresiones de la Internet en
Ingls, excelente tema, interesante, eee perspicaz, bien elegido, totalmente divertido
desarrollar esa actividad, despus pasamos a Cristiano Ronaldo realmente no comparto,
amo Barcelona as que Cristiano Ronaldo poco.

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CHUCHO: Well, we could begin with the internet expressions in English, it was an
excellent , interesting, smart, good elected, It was totally funny to develop this activity, after
that we continued with Cristiano Ronaldo, actually I do not agree so much because I love
Barcelona so I do not prefer Cristiano Ronaldo
Chucho stated several interesting ideas quite relevant for our study, in one
hand, he considers the units like the best thing that he could have done through
the academical period but he adds an assertion which was considered for us an
implication for further studies and it is the fact that teacher as material developer
need to manage with certain grade of wisdom the students likes since a global
perspective without affecting those small groups of students with special likes or
preferences. It implies for the teacher certain grade of understanding the different
students thoughts or world views.
CRISTIAN: ...pues nunca habamos hecho por decir si el rally, nunca habamos hecho
una actividad tan grande como tan divertida con tantas cosas, tantos juegos que hubo
si? Algo as
CRISTIAN: So, we have never done for example the rally, we have never done an
activity as huge as funny with so many things and games. Yes? Something like that
Cristian underlines the innovation he found in one specific unit. He considers
this activity so funny and full of different type of exercises well- known by the
students. It is important to highlight that the units were not just a paper or set of
activities for the classroom but also, they included many different sources of extra

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classroom exercises, for example this rally, Cristian has mentioned above, was a
game based on several activities such as: rana, yermis, grammar exercises,
guessing,music, ula ula, look for the object, drawing, etc As the reader can
observe this kind of activities not only motivated the students in the sense of they
found something different in the English class, but also, there was a
contextualization between learning English and autochthonous games like the
ones mentioned previously.
In addition the school teacher gave us her opinion, in the same survey,
when we asked her about the strengths she had found in the curricular units, she
answered:

Fig.8 Each one of these units had a big strength due to they were designed with
topics that students knew and enjoyed. Also, they included easy vocabulary and at
the same time the knowledge of the teenagers context (Surv.8 Q2).
Two elements we can highlight from this assertion these are in one hand,
the connection from the students with the topics taught and on the other hand the
facility of the contents as a result of having in mind the teenagers context.

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Besides, she grades the units as well designed for these specific students and
context.

Regarding the role that students context play in Foreign Language Learning
Berns and Erikson (2001) held the view that Contextualized Teaching and
Learning (CTL) is the conception of teaching and learning that helps teachers
relate subject matter content to real world situations This viewpoint suggests the
need of a connection between the subject content and the mental context or world
visions in the students.

A broader idea about the rationale of having in mind the context in the
teaching and learning process is suggested by Chris Mazzeo (2008) that CTL as a
diverse family of instructional strategies designed to more seamlessly link the
learning of foundational skills and academic content by focusing teaching and
learning squarely on concrete applications in a specific context that is of interest to
the student Following this idea and to sum up we consider our study as a try touse
each one of the individual world of the participants, with the purpose of establishing
a propitious environment where the learning looks like one of those activities we
love to do.


8.3 EVERYTHING WAS COMPLETE (TODO ESTUVO COMPLETO)

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Nowadays, in Colombia the policies for teaching English as a Foreign
Language suggest as main language approach the communicative Language
Learning which implies for teacher to have in mind not only grammar but also the
incorporation of the four skills and the reinforcing of communication in classrooms.
For this study, and specifically when designing the curricular units we took into
account the previous theoretical framework so, we designed the activities having in
mind writing, reading, listening, speaking, vocabulary, besides, we enclosed
grammar explanations in order to complement each one of the topics proposed by
the school syllabus.

In this sense, we are going to analyze and interpret how students saw the
units in terms of the role they played when fostering the language skills suggested
by the educational policy. As we have done in the previous categories we are
going to start with the findings taken from the survey and then with the ones from
the interview. Finally the reader will find some information taken from the teacher
journal.






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MARIA (10
TH
B)

Fig. 9 Strengths: improvement of speaking, writing, language, vocabulary and the
activities helped me to strength the learning, of practical and active things for our
present (Surv.5 Q2)

In this quotation, we can observe she manifested certain grade of
improvement in terms of speaking, writing and vocabulary. She assumes this
improvement is due to the connection between the content of the units and her
present or daily life.

MARY: (10
TH
A)


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Fig.10 I think everything was complete, there was listening activities and reading
comprehension at the same time the reinforcement of verbs and high important
topics (Surv.1 Q4)
In brief, Mary share with us that for her the units were complete it means
they reinforced all language skills specially verbs and all different topics. With this
assertion we can determine the units fulfill students expectations and syllabus
goals.

CRISTIAN: (10
TH
A)

Fig.11 to the listening and writing level because in those aspects we were a little
bit lost (Surv.4 Q2)
He realized his improvement was focused in two skills: listening and writing.
In these two skills, he said he had weaknesses. Through this assertion he reveals
that the units helped him somehow to focus his attention in his difficulties and in
the way of overcoming them.

Some of the previous statements are going to be expanded with the
opinions given by the participants in the interview.

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MARA: Claro porque no habamos visto nada, nada de lectura, as sino slo
puntos as normales superficiales, fciles, en cambio la lectura ya se profundizo
ms.
MARIA: Of course because we have not studied anything about reading in this
way but just superficial and easy points, but regarding reading we went deeper
Maria mentions something quite interesting; she highlights advancement in
terms of reading. She considers the units helped her to explore the readings in a
deep way. Besides, she realizes that the units take the readings from a superficial
to a deeper point of view. As the reader will observe, the units enclose a strong
component based on the students home culture patterns and their critical points of
interpretation.
CRISTIAN: S, con lo de los condicionales yo creo que avanc ah pero pues los
verbos, los verbos si todava no no me siento bien en los verbos pero en los
condicionales s creo que s avance mucho.

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CRISTIAN: Yes, regarding the conditionals I consider I advance there but about
the verbs still not. I do not feel good in verbs but in conditionals I do believe I
advanced much
As it is clear, Cristian manifests some advances in grammar in terms of
conditionals and some weaknesses in terms of verbs. It could be evidenced the
progress they had during the practicum we had in the institution, at the beginning,
they had many aspect to improve in terms of remembering the past participle of
some verbs, some basic structures of present, past and future simple. At the same
time, most of them were committed with the class and their own learning process.
The global theoretical concept which encloses the previous findings and
conclusions from the participants is grammatical competence improvement which
Refers in Canale and Swain(1980) cited by Brown, to the knowledge of syntax,
meaning, vocabulary, and machanics This type of competence is important
because it provides skills and knowledge so that students can learn to be
understood in speaking and writing. Cannale and Swain thinks that grammatical
competence is similar to the mastery of forms and meanings, while the proficiency
can be interpreted as communicative competence into grammatical competence.


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Besides, Brown (2001) debates grammatical competence is necessary for
communication take place but not sufficient to account for all production and
reception in language. In this sense the participants of this study had some
significant advances in the two last periods of the years which can be evidenced in
the different artifacts they produced, the teachers journal and of course in their
perceptions which have been introduced above.






















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9. CONCLUSION
The curricular unit is a very useful instrument to enhance students
engagement by encouraging students to turn into more active members in
their Foreign Language Learning. In this study we can assert that students felt
stimulated toward learning the Foreign Language when they found them
creative, appealing, interesting and adequate to their level of English. The
units fostered the Students engagement in the sense they feel certain level of
rapport between them and the language they were learning.
The role of the curricular units was to achieve a nice connection
between students lives, context and Foreign Language Learning. Two
elements we can highlight from this study these are in one hand, the
connection from the students with the topics taught and on the other hand the
facility of the contents as a result of having in mind the teenagers context.
The students had a meaningful learning and advances in terms of
grammatical competence. It could be observed in the different writing
exercises and test applied throughout the period. Also, they manifested the
units contributed to reinforce some topics they had studied before.
Finally, besides the curricular units promoted engagement, contextualized
teaching and grammatical competence advancement, they constitutes in a
suitable tool for teachers and students. For teachers by facilitating the
development of the lesson due to the planning achievement, looking for clear

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learning goals and the addressing of the lesson. For students by allowing them
to work with confidence and awareness taking as a reference several
interesting topics close related to their lives.













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10. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
This final chapter introduces to the reader some further implications as a result
of the application of curricular units; they are more than concerns emerged
from the study, a bunch of reflections and meaningful contributions to have in
mind when researching about the development, application and assessment of
materials in any educational institution. We hope this study contribute
somehow to the research literature for further studies in the same research
field, consequently it can provides ideas to reopen studies which can
contribute to have a meaningful progress in the quality of education in our
context and at the national level.
In the English teaching the use of curricular units can be a worthy tool to take
the students context into the foreign language learning,, but it requires from
teachers a certain sensibility when incorporating those students which have
different perspectives and thoughts, this with the purpose of creating an
environment where equality takes place.
Among the many elements we need to have in mind as material developers,
we would like to highlight the need of putting attention to values promotion as
a part of the activities planned in the units. This with the purpose of tending to
improve the understanding among the members of our society.

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APPENDICES


















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Appendix 2: Parents permission request
Tunja, 7 de Noviembre 2012
Seores
Padres de Familia de estudiantes grados dcimos
Ciudad
Cordial Saludo
La presente tiene como propsito informarles que actualmente nos encontramos
adelantando un proyecto de investigacin relacionado con el diseo de materiales. Para
tal fin se han seleccionado 8 estudiantes de grado dcimo A: Mary Gil, Nixon Guerrero,
Nicols Alemn, Nicol Tenjo, Cristian Hernndez y de grado decimo B: Jose Luis
Pedraza, Jess Hernndez, Edwin Merardo, Juan Carlos Parada y Felipe Morales. Hemos
seleccionado este grupo para llevar a cabo una serie de observaciones que nos permitan
identificar algunas percepciones de los estudiantes acerca del material que se est
desarrollando.

De la misma manera, durante varias sesiones recolectaremos datos escritos a travs de
encuestas y una entrevista grabada. Su participacin es de vital importancia para el
proyecto y es de carcter voluntario. Este proyecto no tendr incidencia alguna en las
evaluaciones y notas parciales y /o finales de la materia, se usarn nombres ficticios para
mantener la identidad de los participantes en el anonimato, y se brindar la posibilidad de
poder conocer los resultados de la observacin a los estudiantes que as lo soliciten.
Apreciaramos sinceramente su autorizacin para poder contar con su hijo (a) como
participante en este proyecto. Sin otro motivo y agradeciendo su amable atencin.
.
Afablemente,

_____________________________ _______________________________
NELSON JOSE GMEZ HUERTAS. IVONNE DAYANA GONZLEZ PREZ
Estudiante X semestre Estudiante X semestre

LIC. IDIOMAS MODERNOS UPTC



NOMBRE_________________________________
FIRMA___________________________________


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Appendix 3: Initial Survey to identify Cultural Patterns
UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA Y TECNOLGICA DE COLOMBIA
FACULTAD CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIN
ESCUELA DE IDIOMAS
PROYECTO DE INVESTIGACIN: CURRICULAR UNITS DEVELOPMENT
BASED ON STUDENTS HOME CULTURE
2012

ENCUESTA NMERO 1
Nombre: ______________________________________________________

HACIA MI MUNDO INTERIOR
IMAGINARIOS, PENSAMIENTOS, CONCEPTOS E IDEAS

1. Qu es lo que ms se te dificulta del ingls?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
2. Crees que aprender ingls te ayuda en tu proyecto de vida? Por qu?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

3. Qu es lo que ms valoras en la vida?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
4. Qu es lo que ms te emociona?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

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5. Qu programa de televisin te gusta ms? Por qu?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
6. Has una lista de las cosas que en verdad te encanta comer (en orden de
importancia)
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
7. Si te ganaras el Baloto enuncia lo primero que te gustara comprar
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
8. Qu tipo de literatura lees?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
9. Si tuvieras que cantar en una izada de bandera que cancin
escogeras? Por qu?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
10. Si t fueras profesor de grado 10B or 10A, Enumera todos los aspectos
que te gustara ensear a tus estudiantes.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
11. Cules son los lugares ms atractivos que conoces y cules te gustara
conocer?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
12. Qu es lo que ms te gusta escuchar que los dems te digan?

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__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
13. Qu te pone triste?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
14. Complete: Me caracterizo por ser una persona
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
15. Describe las persona que ms admiras, Por qu?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
16. Cules dichos o refranes sabes?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________











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Appendix 4: COMMON PATTERNS SURVEY 1

HACIA MI MUNDO INTERIOR
IMAGINARIOS, PENSAMIENTOS, CONCEPTOS E IDEAS

La encuesta fue aplicada a 8 estudiantes de los grados Dcimos 4 A Y 4 B. La
muestra para el anlisis fue de 20 estudiantes tomadas al azar. This
interview was applied at the beggining of the practicum.
1. Qu es lo que ms se te dificulta
del ingls?
- Hablar _Lectura _nada _Escritura
Traduccin - Gramtica -Vocabulario
_ Escucha
2. Crees que aprender ingls te
ayuda en tu proyecto de vida?
Por qu?
- Proyecto de vida xito - Viajar -
Profesin.
3. Qu es lo que ms valoras en la
vida?

Familia - Mam - Padre - Amigos
El yo - la Vida - mi cuerpo - La academia -
Cosas Materiales - El deporte.
4. Qu es lo que ms te
emociona?

_ Compaa de los padres - Mi estudio -
Aprender otro Idioma deportes- Msica -
Tener una carrera
_ Conocer nuevas personas
_ Cosas que sorprendan
_ El amor 1
5. Qu programa de televisin te
gusta ms? Por qu?

_ Los Simpson - CC Miami- South Park
_ Juegos Mentales
_ No veo Tv, ninguno
_ Drake y josh
_ Asesinos en serie

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_ Documentales en Discovery Chanel_
7. Si te ganaras el Baloto enuncia lo
primero que te gustara comprar

_ X-BOX
_ Ayudar a la mam
_ Biblioteca
_ Una finca con piscina
8. Qu tipo de literatura lees? _mitologia _ Romntica
_Biologa - Ingles
_De todas - De misterios o cosas
escondidas Ficcin
9. Si tuvieras que cantar en una
izada de bandera que cancin
escogeras? Por qu?

_My heart will go on
_ The reason
_Amigos Rakim y Kenway
_Lonely Day System of a Down
_I am yours
_El sonido del silencio de Alex Campos
The scientist - because you loved me
10. Si tu fueras profesor de grado 10,
Enumera todos los aspectos que
te gustara ensear a tus
estudiantes.

Poner ms dinmica a la clase
_Orden disciplina respeto y puntualidad
_Mas ingls conversacin y actividades
ldicas
_Que aprendan a escuchar
_ Mejor comportamiento

11. Cules son los lugares ms
atractivos que conoces y cuales
te gustara conocer?
CONOCIDOS
-Arcabuco
_Moniquir
_Melgar
_Cartagena
POR CONOCER
_Brasil
_Argentina
_El mar
_Pueblos de Boyac y
sus arquitectura
12. Qu es lo que te gusta
escuchar que los dems te
_ Que soy bueno en lo que hago
_ Que soy bueno jugando micro

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digan? _ Que soy excelente amigo
_Mis defectos pero sin Criticar
_Saber que soy una buena persona
_ Que son felices
_ Muy bien excelente

13. Qu te llena de coraje o te pone
triste?
_Cuando no me valoran
_Saber que no tengo mis padres unidos y
que en el saln me tratan mal
_ Falta de voluntad para cumplir mis
ideales
_No hacer nada que no quiero hacer, y no
lo hago porque no debo
- Que insulten a mi familia.
_ Pelear con alguien
_ Que mi familia se decepcione de mi
14. Me caracterizo por ser una
persona?
_ Amigable - respetuosa callada
inteligente amable - de ambiente
_ compaerista - que da lo mejor de s
misma. Perfeccionista Responsable
15. Describa la persona que ms
admiras y por que
_ Cristiano Ronaldo Familia - pap
_mam Filsofos - Un msico
_Messi- Ronaldinho
16. Que dichos o refranes te
sabes?
_ De tal palo tal la estilla
_El come solo muere solo
_Dime con quien andas y te dir quin
eres.
_ A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente
_ Ms vale pjaro en mano que cien
volando


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Appendix 5: FINAL SURVEY CURRICULAR ASSESSMENT

UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA Y TECNOLGICA DE COLOMBIA
FACULTAD CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIN
ESCUELA DE IDIOMAS
PROYECTO DE INVESTIGACIN: CURRICULAR UNITS DEVELOPMENT
BASED ON STUDENTS HOME CULTURE

FINAL SURVEY

11. Cmo te sientes al momento de desarrollar las unidades curriculares
propuestas por el profesor (a)?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

12. Qu fortalezas ha es encontrado en las unidades curriculares?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________


13. Qu debilidades observ en las unidades curriculares?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

14. Si tuvieras la oportunidad de agregar algn tipo de actividad a las
unidades? Qu le agregaras? Por qu?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

15. Qu actividades se te facilitaron y cules se te dificultaron de las
propuestas en las unidades?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________



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Appendix 6: Interview Transcriptions.
TRANSCRIPTIONS

MARY.
1.IVONNE: Hola Mary cmo estas?
2.MARY: Bien
3.IVONNE: bien? Q tal ese ese final de grado dcimo.
4.MARY: bien..
5.IVONNE: Ahhh bueno. Oye, imagnate que estuve ehhh averiguando o mirando
acerca 6.de tu de la encuesta que tu respondiste y pues no se vi cosas muy
interesantes, me 7.gustara saber por ejemplooo que aspectos interesantes
encontraste en la unidad, 8.que te gust de las unidades.
9.MARY: Que fueron didcticas y pues eran completas.
10.IVONNE: dices que completas, por qu completas?
MARY: Porque manejaba las tres unidades: hablar, escuchar y pues escribir en ingls
IVONNE: y para ti de las habilidades que me mencionas cul se te facilita y cul se te
dificulta ms?
MARY: Escribir y,,, y hablarlo ms o menos se me dificulta escucharlo
IVONNE: escucharlo?crees que las habilidades de listening o escucha fueron
suficientes? o quiz faltaron un poco?
MARY: No si fueron suficientes
IVONNE: ahhhhhhh,,, bueno. Qu actividades le agregaras a las unidades que
desarrollamos a lo largo del periodo?
MARY: Puuess nada, pues un poco ms de explicacin de los idioms.
IVONNE: Dices que aprendiste varios temas importantes cules temas importantes
aprendiste o qu temas fueron importantes para ti?

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MARY: Los modal verbs, el reported speech y los tiempos verbales.
IVONNE: Tu crees que estos temas te serviran de pronto para el ICFES o para tu vida
futura? Te parece interesante aprender el ingls.El ingls es chvere cierto?
MARY: Si.
IVONNE: ah bueno listo entonces pues igual, que tienes clase ahorita? Qu clase
tienes?
MARY: Ehhhhhh,,,, espaol.
IVONNE: Ah bueno entonces le dices al profe que estabas conmigo y listo pues bueno
entonces no te molesto ms que gracias y pues juiciosa. Chao
MARY: chao profe.

NIXON
IVONNE: Nixon
NIXON: hola profe como vas
IVONNE: hola qu haces? para dnde vas?
NIXON: no para clase, tengo espaol.
IVONNE: ahhh,,, ay oye ser que la profe se pone brava si te demoras un poquitico
conmigo? Yo ahorita voy y le digo que estabas conmigo.
NIXON: no pues no se, normal, no no creo.
IVONNE: Es que imagnate que estuve leyendo la..las encuestas que ustedes ayer me
respondieron y resulta que vi cosas muy interesantes en la tuya entonces me gustara
saber pues algunas cosas. Pero bueno, cuntame yo le supuestamente que t,,,que
t veas las unidades muy interesante por qu te parecieron interesantes?.
NIXON: No se tal vez el notar otro tipo de clase al que hace la profesora, muy
interesantes son las clase as con hojas o videos o grabaciones.
IVONNE: mmm, de las habilidades que te mostr, que trabajamos el listening, el
speaking, el writing y el reading cul crees que se te complica ms?
NIXON: El, el Como la pronunciacin leer las, las que las frases o los textos en ingls.

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IVONNE: mmm, ya ehh alguna dificultad en el desarrollo de las unidades? De pronto en
la explicacin de los temas o no se. Yo le o segn lo que yo le en la encuesta que era
complicado para ti comprender los temas pero que los entendas despus de un
repaso. T crees que sera bueno en las unidades de pronto incluir un poco.. un repaso
pequeo de la unidad de lo que se vio en la unidad?
NIXON:Yo pienso que si porque tal vez no todo el mundo coge los temas como otros. A
mi personalmente, pues yo al principio entenda fcil, pero ya despus con el tiempo es
un poco ms complicado porque es tema sobre tema y as.
IVONNE: Tu dices que no le agregaras nada a la unidad que todo est bien, o de pronto
no se te gustara que nos centraramos un poco en sus gustos, en lo que les gusta,en los
deportes que practican, qu opinas de eso?
NIXON: No se a mi me pareci que las unidades o sea el modo de manejar la clase fue
pues bien por lo que fue algo diferente y la salida de lo del real y todo eso no se no le
agregara en este momento no no pienso agregarle algo.
IVONNE: Ay bueno muchas gracias entonces vamos rpido y le decimos al profe que
que estabas conmigo, que ests bien y pues y juicioso.
NIXON: Bueno listo profe chao.
IVONNE: Chao.

NICOLAS
NICOLAS: Hola profe es que la necesitaba para decirle que no puedo asistir a clases.
IVONNE: Por qu?Qu pas?
NICOLAS: Profe tengo una cita odontolgica y no puedo asistir.
IVONNE: Ah buenoqu te pas ayer en la evaluacin? La estuve corrigiendo y
estuvieron como regulares.
NICOLAS: Ah no pues es que pues es que lo que pasa es que me enrede un poco con lo
del condicional, pero no, no yo creo que ah la pase bien.
IVONNE: pues si fue lo de los verbos les dije que estudiaran bien los participios de los
verbos, la mayora fall en eso. Ay ven te digo una cosa imagnate que estuve mirando
la..la encuesta que me respondiste ayer y resulta que vi cosas muy interesantes

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entonces pues quisiera que me dijeras aprovechando ya ahorita que estamos.. me
dijeras, t me escribiste que te parecan creativas Por qu? Que lo que mas te gusto
fue eso qu le viste de creativo?
NICOLAS: ah pues le vi de creativo profe pues las actividades de por ejemplo la de las
canciones me parecieron muy bacanas esas actividades que mientras uno iba
escuchando iba escribiendo, me parecieron activi..la de cupido, la de Cristiano Ronaldo
uy esa estuvo muy buena me gusto todo eso las actividades fueron creativas porque yo
nunca pues en los profesores que habamos tenido practicantes no haban hecho lo
mismo.
IVONNE: mmm, bueno y quisiera saber que dificultades tu tienes y que debilidades, no
que dificultades o debilidades y que fortalezas tienes a la hora de responder las
unidades.
NICOLAS: Bueno pues dificultades la nica que tengo son los pues no tengo muchas
pero la de los verbos es la que si la que ms se me dificulta porque a la hora de armar
las oraciones y todo eso pues soy un poco bueno en esa parte.
IVONNE: t crees que sera bueno hacer una unidad basada en slo verbos?
NICOLAS: Pues si sera bueno pero con slo verbos en pasado participio, continuo y
toda esa vaina.
IVONNE: Ah bueno listo. Ehhhh.no se te gustara de pronto agregarle algo a las
unidades?
NICOLAS: Agregarle a las unidades no una actividad ldica.
IVONNE: ahhh como que sopas de letras, crucigramas, o que cosas que tipo de
actividades
NICOLAS: Pues si una sopa de letras sera bacano, aunque ya lo hicimos pero sera otra ,
otra cosa ms interesante, bacana.
IVONNE: Ah bueno listo y qu opinas acerca del rally?
NICOLAS: Oy no el rally fue muy bacano la verdad quedamos de primeros y te
agradezco mucho pero no pues la verdad fue interesante encontrar todas las fichas y
todo eso fue una por eso digo que es creativa porque eso nunca lo habamos hecho y
la verdad pues las preguntas, todos lo que nos preguntaron, entonces todo muy
bueno, estuvo muy bueno todo eso.

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IVONNE: Bueno listo Nicolas entonces vamos rpido y le digo al profe que estabas
conmigo y muchas gracias por tu atencin, juicioso.
CRISTIAN
IVONNE: Ay Cristian ven ven que necesito que me hagas un favor
CRISTIAN: Hola profe si dime
IVONNE: Para donde vas?
CRISTIAN: Para mi casita como siempre juicioso.
IVONNE: Ah bueno eso esta bien. Ay oye es que imagnate que estuve mirando ayer las
,,las encuesta que ustedes ayer me respondieron acerca de lo de las unidades del
proyecto te acuerdas lo que te coment? Y pues quera saber un poquito ms acerca
de lo que me respondiste ser que me me regalas un minutico?
CRISTIAN: S profe, no habra problema si, dime.
IVONNE: Ah bueno listo, que te iba a decir? Bueno quisiera saber un poco ms acerca
de las habilidades que te parecieron ehhhh, no se interesantes en la unidad, las
habilidades que encontraste que qu te pareci interesante?
CRISTIAN: Pues la forma de realizar las actividades, si porque pues nunca habamos
hecho por decir si el rally, nunca habamos hecho una actividad tan grande como tan
divertida con tantas cosas, tantos juegos que hubo si? Algo as. La creatividad ms que
todo y pues se nota que le tomaron tiempo para para realizar eso, me pareci bien.
IVONNE: ahhhh que te iba a decir de las habilidades del listening, del Reading, el
speaking, el writing en cual queque o sea en cul crees que mejoraste tu habilidad?
CRISTIAN: Pueees, no se creo que la deee,,, la de escuchar antes por decir para
completar para o sea para escuchar y completar algo eran textos y pues como que los
textos aburran en cambio las canciones como que lo entretenan a uno un poco
entonces creo que esa parte estuvo bien y como que mejore un poco en eso.
IVONNE: ehhhh, bueno, tu crees que has mejorado tu desarrollo a lo largo de este
periodo? Con el desarrollo de las unidades curriculares.
CRISTIAN: S, con lo de los condicionales yo creo que avanc ah pero pues los verbos,
los verbos si todava no no me siento bien en los verbos pero en los condicionales si
creo que s avance mucho.

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IVONNE: Crees que sera pertinente de pronto trabajar o desarrollar una unidad con
verbos?
CRISTIAN: S me parece bien pero ms que todo de verbos irregulares que son los
difciles
IVONNE: S, claro. Otra cosita, tu me dijiste ah que los idioms te parecieron
complicados por qu?
CRISTIAN: Porque ah depende mucho de la interpretacin y pues como de dichos,
entonces uno no sabe bien de eso entonces a eso si como que habra que dedicarle
tieeempo.
IVONNE: Un poquito ms de tiempo si. Ah bueno crees que sera bueno agregarle algo
ms a las unidades?
CRISTIAN: Pues actividades ms ms recreativas que no se centren tanto en el saln
es que en el saln es comocomo aburrido es mejor actividades al aire libre.
IVONNE: al aire libre, pues si claro que eso tambin habra que pensarlo de pronto un
poco en la disciplina de ustedes no no? son un curso muy disciplinado, pero pues
CRISTIAN: Pero no somos todos.
IVONNE: listo? Ah bueno listo, no era eso entonces gracias y pues que almuerces rico
que te vaya bien.

EDWIN

NELSON: Hola Edwin Cmo ests?

EDWIN: Bien

NELSON: Qu ha hecho, Cmo le ha ido en matemticas?

EDWIN: El profesor iba a hacer evaluacin supuestamente.

NELSON: Cuntas materias perdi?

EDWIN: Qumica solamente


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NELSON: Y eso Por qu?

EDWIN: Porque me anularon la evaluacin

NELSON: Grave. Bueno Edwin aqu revisando tu encuesta, la encuesta que aplicamos
hace una semana yo encuentro algunas cosas importantes que me gustara ampliar un
poco mejor. T escribes aqu que las unidades poseen todo tipo de actividades. Cmo
cules tipos de actividades?

EDWIN: El listening, el Reading, actividades como el crucigrama, vocabulario por
ejemplo de pronto internet son muy completas en ese aspecto y faltara pues en si el
listening las actividades.

NELSON: eee, el listening? En cuanto a los listening que tuvimos Cmo te pareci?

EDWIN: eee, pues bien, no eran tan difciles de realizar, es importante porque una de
las cosas ms importantes del Ingls es aprender a escuchar y uno no se queda
bloqueado antes de hacer.

NELSON: T Cundo consideras un listening dficil?

EDWIN: Pues depende de la pronunciacin que es en, pues la velocidad en el del
hablante y de pues del lenguaje pueden haber palabras que uno no conoce y tambin
en la forma de hablar, si habla o sea ms limpio.

NELSON: Bueno en cuanto a la segunda pregunta escribes aqu poseen todo lo
necesario inclusive ms para interactuar en el aula y la pronunciacin eee, Crees que
hubo un avance en cuanto a la pronunciacin?

EDWIN: Pues si yo creo que si porque una parte de las actividades era las palabras que
uno no conoce o no entiende, y que el profesor a uno le ayuda tambin explicrselas y
mirar su pronunciacin porque en Ingls una forma se escribe y otra se pronuncia.
NELSON: T escribes aqu tambin que te encantara una seccin de dibujo en las
unidades. Por qu escribes eso?

EDWIN: Pues en si porque, porque el idioma tambin uno capta mejor viendo que
escuchando y leyendo, entonces sera mucho ms fcil aprender de esa manera, uno
recordara ms.


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NELSON: Ah, bueno, listo notas algn avance desde el momento de la aplicacin de las
unidades, antes de las unidades y ahora.

EDWIN: Pues si claro porque, una parte porque las prcticas superiores estn hechas
para uno por ejemplo temas de inters para uno como Cristiano Ronaldo, hace que la
persona se interese por el texto y que le ponga atencin entonces eso ayuda a que la
persona aprenda de mejor manera al igual que la ayuda del profesor, los crucigramas,
las actividades, que se incorporan al taller le dan una mayor facilidad de aprendizaje y
como ms ameno.

PROFESOR: Aqu a manera de conclusin podras mencionar todas las actividades que
se te facilitaron de las unidades.

EDWIN: Los crucigramas por ejemplo, las palabras o los puntos de relleno o de creacin
de frases o palabras, y algunas palabras desconocidas de los textos.

PROFESOR: Por qu cree usted que los profesores no se le miden a esto del diseo
sino que simplemente adoptan material de cualquier parte y ya hacen una clase?

EDWIN: De pronto porque o sea no se interesan por esa cercana estudiante profesor,
es importante tambin aprender como incitar a los estudiantes para que aprendan y
eso ayuda a ellos y al mismo profesor en su currculo en su trabajo.

PROFESOR: Te gustara adicionar algo en relacin al trabajo realizado.

EDWIN: No, como dije una seccin de dibujo, una seccin de crecimiento de fraces, o
poesa o yo que se algo que sea interesante, en Ingls.

PROFESOR: Gracias por su atencin nos hablamos otro da.

MARIA
PROFESOR: Hola Mara Cmo ests?
MARA: Bien
PROFESOR: Qu has hecho Mara?
MARA: Nada
PROFESOR: Cmo te fue este perodo en el colegio?

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MARA: Regular
PROFESOR: Y eso Por qu?
MARA: Pues porque perd religin y tica
PROFESOR: Mira que revisando tu encuesta de nuestro proyecto quera ampliar un
poco ms tus respuestas. Con respecto a la pregunta nmero uno. T escribes que te
sentiste un poco estresada por la lectura en ingls, y eso Por qu?
MARA: Pues la mayora ya que no llevbamos casi lectura en Ingls, no veamos
tanto.
PROFESOR: Con respecto a las fortalezas t escribes que la comprensin lectora, es
decir que las unidades te ayudaron a avanzar en lectura.
MARA: Claro porque no habamos visto nada, nada de lectura, as sino slo puntos as
normales superficiales, fciles, en cambio la lectura ya se profundizo ms.
PROFESOR: Bien, en cuanto a las debilidades y fortalezas t escribes que hubieron
muchas palabras desconocidas. Por qu escribes eso?
MARA: Porque para m la mayora eran desconocidas
PROFESOR: En cules unidades especficamente?
MARA: En la de Indirect speech.
PROFESOR: Si tuvieras la oportunidad de agregar algn tipo de actividad que no
encontraste en las unidades Qu le pondras?
MARA: Palabras desconocidas.
PROFESOR: Cmo te pareci el Rally?
MARA: Super bien, ya que aprendimos mucho.
PROFESOR: Qu debilidades encontraste en ese Rally?
MARA: No, Ninguna.
PROFESOR: Gracias Mara por tu atencin.

CHUCHO

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PROFESOR: Hola Chucho Qu haces?, Cmo te ha ido?
CHUCHO: Re bien.
PROFESOR: Cmo te fue este perodo?
CHUCHO: Un mediocre 96

PROFESOR: Chucho revisando ac su encuesta encuentro cosas que me gustara
ampliar. Por ejemplo escribes ac que los temas fueron generales e interesantes.
Cules temas te parecieron generales e interesantes?
CHUCHO: eee, bueno, eee podramos comenzar con las expresiones de la Internet en
Ingls, excelente tema, interesante, eee perpicaz, bien elegido, totalmente divertido
desarrollar esa actividad, despus pasamos a Cristiano Ronaldo realmente no
comparto, amo Barcelona as que Cristiano Ronaldo poco.
PROFESOR: Es decir que falto ajustar las unidades ms a su gusto.
CHUCHO: Si tal vez o sea, se bas en el gusto de unos pocos y no de tantos pero de
todas maneras las actividades estuvieron muy interesantes.
PROFESOR: Cuntame Cmo le pareci el Rally?
CHUCHO: El Rally fue una experiencia que no se haba visto, se haba visto en
matemticas, en Ingls fue demasiado interesante. Fue una dinmica divertida, faltaron
algunas reglas o estatutos por mejorar, pero en general estuvo muy vacano.
PROFESOR: En cuanto a las unidades que usted desarrollo qu debilidades encontr?
CHUCHO: umm, que podramos decir, que algunas veces los muchachos no tomaban
muy serio las unidades. Falta tal vez de cultura y de responsabilidad por parte de los
que las desarrollaron, pero en general por la nota y por cosas externas las actividades
se desarrollaron y de todas maneras fue muy vacano.
PROFESOR: Y en cuanto a las fortalezas de las unidades Qu viste?
CHUCHO: Fortalezas, muchas, cosas que de pronto no se tratan muy regularmente en
una rea de Ingls se trataron. Hubo cosas mucho ms dinmicas que dan ms inters
que una clase normal comn y corriente, no slo lectura o cosas demasiado regulares o
superficiales.

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PROFESOR: Bien, si tuviera la oportunidad de agregarle otras actividades a las
unidades qu le pondra?
CHUCHO: No s tal vez el gusto, o sea que las actividades sean interesantes para todos,
s, o sea hubo actividades, como la del Internet que fueron totalmente excelentes y
otras que realmente no le gustaron a todos, exactamente.
PROFESOR: Bien, alguna otra cosa te gustara agregar.
CHUCHO: No, sin palabras.
PROFESOR: Listo Gracias chucho.
















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Appendix 7: Photos of the Pedagogical Experience.












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Appendix 8: Curricular units.






CURRICULAR UNITS











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Appendix 9: Teacher daily notes






















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Appendix 10: Students artifacts.




























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Appendix 11: Students Surveys

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